The Washington Times (AKA The Moonie Times) is Washington, D.C.'s newspaper which perpetually plays second fiddle to the Washington Post. The Times lost money from its inception in 1982 until 2015, in which it finally became profitable.[1]

Started by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, the Church has pumped over $1.7 billion into the paper to keep it afloat.[2] Although much of the early Times staff came from the defunct Washington Star, the paper's board of directors was made up of members of the Unification Church, with the staff undergoing occasional purges, resignations, and faction fights over the direction of the paper.[3] No less an authority than the Rev. Moon himself has proclaimed the Times a "gift" to America to thank the U.S. for fighting Communism in Korea, or something like that.[4] In 2002 Rev. Moon outdid himself by proclaiming he established the Times "in response to heaven's direction" and that "The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world."[5]

The editorial slant of the Washington Times is notably conservative and partisan in favor of the Republican Party. On occasion, they do some bang-up investigative journalism and muckraking, sometimes on other conservative groups which the Moonies are involved in intramural feuds with. Usually though, the Times is a quaint bore, ever pining for a return to the glory days of the 1850s or 1920s, and Ronald Reagan's befuddled dreams of reactionary radicalism.

Notable editorial tics: Until recently, The Washington Times had an inability to mention gay marriage anywhere in their pages, including AP wire stories, without putting gratuitous scare quotes around "marriage."[6][7]

As of May 1, 2010, the Moonies cut off the paper's subsidy and the Washington Times was reportedly up for sale. This was scooped March 30 by the Drudge Report and denied at the time by the Times[8] and reported May 1 in the Washington Post.[9] The paper was sold in September 2010 for $1,[10] apparently back to the elder Rev. Moon to solve a feud over the paper among his sons. The Washington Times is owned by Operations Holdings,[11] a Moonie front company, which in turn is owned by HSA-UWC ("Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity"), which could be called either another front group (since few people know what HSA-UWC is) or just a synonym of the Unification Church.

↑In reality it is more or less an attempt by the Moonie cult to insert themselves into the mainstream by owning a major newspaper, much as Christian Science has accomplished with the Christian Science Monitor - the difference being the CSM usually deals in facts.